05 


P 
^ 

or-- 


LECTURE  No.  43 

BY  DR.  CHARLES  E.  CHAPMAN 


ADDRESS 

MR.  J.  W.  SANGER 


HELD  AT  237  MERCHANTS  EXCHANGE  BUILDING 
SAN  FRANCISCO.  CALIFORNIA 


1919 


Delivered    under    Auspices    of 

Tne  Foreign  Trade  Club  of  San  Francisco 

W.  H.  HAMMER,  President          WM.  E.  HAGUE,  Sec.-TreaS. 

OFFICE : 
Room  5,  Moiiadiiock  Building 


San  Ft 


Cal. 


Price  50  Cents 


F 


Foreign  Trade  Club 


SAN  FRANCISCO 


OFFICERS 

WM.  H.  HAMMER  ....  President 
E.  W.  WILSON  .  .  .  First  Vice-President 

E.  G.  BABBITT  .  .  .  Second  Vice-  President 
C.  E.  HYDES  ....  Third  Vice-President 
WM  E.  HAGUE  .  .  .  Secretary-Treasurer 


EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 

E.  G.  BABBITT  .     .    U.  S.  Bureau  of  Foreign  and  Domestic  Commerce 

F.  A.  BAILEY Matson  Navigation  Co. 

JOHN   r\.  COLE WiHitts  &-  Patterson 

BEN  C.  DAILEY Overseas  Shipping  Co. 

J.  G.  DECATUFk       .         .         .  Western  Union  Telegraph  Co. 

J.  J.  DWYEK  .         .         Port  Department  Chamber  of  Commerce 

DOUGLAS   ERSKINE W.  Pv.  Grace  &-  Co. 

WM.  E.  HAGUE 100%  Club 

WM.  H.  HAMMEFk Hammer  €r  Co. 

C.  E.  HYDES Fireman's  Fund  Insurance  Co 

GEO.  I.  KINNEY General  Electric  Co. 

WM.  A.  McKEE Dickerson  6-  Gaskell,  Inc. 

C.  B.  PERKINS Standard  Products  Co. 

H    M.  WADE       ....       Traffic  and  Commerce  Attorney 
E.  W    WILSON         .         .         Anglo  6-  London  Paris  National  Bank 


rrary 


SOUTH  AMERICA:   ITS  LANDS,  ITS  PEOPLES  AND 
ITS  PROBLEMS 

By  DR.   CHARLES  Er  CHAPMAN 


Assistant  Professor  of  American  HistofyT  University  of  California 
>re  the  Foreign  Trade 
September  llth.   1919. 


An  address  delivered  before  the  Foreign  Trade  Club  Wednesday  evening:, 


Several  years  ago  T  remember  there  was  a  discussion  as  to 
what  we  should  call  the  boulevard  we  were  going  to  have  out  by 
Twin  Peaks,  and  a  number  of  names  were  proposed.  Among 
others  was  a  name  proposed  by  the  late  Zoeth  Eldredge,  the  his- 
torian, who  suggested  that  we  call  it  after  a  famous  viceroy  of 
New  Spain,  who  was  responsible  for  the  founding  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, a  man  named  Bucarely.  The  name  did  not  meet  with 
favor,  and  among  others  who  objected  was  a  man  who  wrote  a 
letter  to  the  "Safety  Valve"  of  the  Chronicle.  He  said,  in  effect, 
"The  people  will  never  get  these  Spanish  names  around  their 
tongues,  and  it  is  foolish  to  suggest  them.  Besides,  who  the  hell 
was  Bucarely?" 

As  the  President  has  announced  my  subject  I  feel  that  it 
amounts  virtually  to  "What  in  blazes  is  South  America?" 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  ignorance  in  this  country  about  South 
America,  and  I  suspect  that  even  in  this  unusually  well-informed 
audience  there  are  a  number  with  mistaken  ideas.  About  twenty 
years  ago  the  idea  was  prevalent  among  us  that  South  America 
was  all  tropical ;  that  all  the  people  down  there  were  Spaniards ; 
that  the  popular  sport  of  those  countries  was  raising  revolutions 
and  setting  up  dictators ;  and  finally — and  this  most  of  all  we 
were  sure  about — that  they  loved  us  as  long  lost  brothers  and 
were  especially  devoted  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  had  saved 
them  from  so  many  ills. 

That  is  wrhat  we  thought.  Now  we  know  better.  South  Amer- 
ica is  not  all  tropical.  The  people  do  not  consider  themselves  as 
Spaniards  at  all  and  are  not  even  all  white;  we  have  gradually 
come  to  understand  there  are  a  great  many  Indians  down  there. 
"We  have  also  come  to  learn  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  not  alto- 
gether beloved  by  the  Spanish  Americans.  But  our  information 
is  still  very  far  from  being  adequate.  I  might  say,  also,  that  the 
information  of  South  America  with  regard  to  us  is  not  adequate. 
There  are  reasons  why  it  should  not  be  so,  but,  at  that,  they 
know  about  ten  times  as  much  concerning  us  as  we  do  about  them. 


They  have  certain  traditional  reasons  for  knowing  about  the 
United  States.  Their  governments  are  modeled,  in  theory  at 
least,  on  ours.  They  send  a  great  many  of  their  young  men  to 
the  United  States  for  their  education,  particularly  for  such  sub- 
jects as  agriculture,  mining,  and  engineering.  Their  newspapers 
devote  considerable  space  to  us.  In  addition  to  the  daily  news 
they  have  a  weekly  letter  concerning  us.  You  wouldn't  recog- 
nize the  information  sometimes,  but  at  any  rate  it  shows  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  interest  in  us  on  their  part.  They  study  about 
us  in  their  schools.  I  was  amazed,  astonished,  and  sad,  when  T 
learned  that  the  poor  little  boys  in  Peru  had  to  learn  the  names 
of  the  capitals  of  our  States.  I  don't  know  what  good  it  is 
going  to  do  them,  but  it  shows  that  they  study  us  to  some  extent , 
To  a  certain  extent  they  admire  the  United  States,  especially  for 
our  scientific  and  literary  achievements.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  are  not  so  much  impressed  by  some  of  the  things  we  are  im- 
pressed by  about  ourselves — the  importance  of  our  big  busi- 
ness, for  example.  In  fact,  they  rather  overdo  their  ideas  on 
that  score.  They  think  we  spend  all  our  time  chasing  the 
Almighty  Dollar. 

Now,  to  come  directly  to  the  subject:  What,  in  a  few  words, 
is  South  America?  The  first  thing  to  take  up,  naturally,  would 
be  geography.  I  am  not  going  to  spend  much  time  on  that.  I 
assume  that  this  club,  at  any  rate,  knows  more  about  it  than  the 
average  American.  I  might  add,  God  help  you  in  Foreign 
Trade  if  you  don 't !  Just  for  example,  very  few  Americans 
realize  that  South  America,  lies  almost  wholly  east  of  New  York 
on  the  line  of  longitude.  Very  few  of  us  realize  how  large  those 
countries  are.  Even  the  small  countries  are  pretty  considerable 
in  size.  Take  Chile:  if  you  superimposed  Chile  on  the  United 
States  it  would  reach  from  San  Diego  to  Alaska.  In  the  other 
direction  it  is  about  as  wide  as  California. 

Much  of  South  America  is  tropical,  but  the  best  part  of  it  is 
not.  It  is  temperate  in  its  climate,  and  of  the  best  type  of  tem- 
perate climate.  I  refer  in  particular  to  the  southern  part: 
Argentina,  Chile,  Uruguay,  and  southern  Brazil.  Much  of  the 
tropical  regions  even  is  high  in  the  air,  on  account  of  the  eleva- 
tion, and  has  a  liveable  climate. 

With  regard  to  the  races  of  South  America,  we  have  come  to 
realize  that  South  Americans  are  not  all  white,  but  we  have 
tended  to  swing  too  far  the  other  way  and  to  regard  them  as  all 
Indians.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  in  the  southern  coun- 
tries of  South  America  the  proportion  of  white  blood  is  greater 
than  it  is  in  the  United  States,  when  you  take  into  consideration 
all  the  negroes  we  have  in  the  South.  Take,  for  example,  a 
country  like  Chile.  Its  population  is  roughly  about  four  mil- 


lion.  There  used  to  be  a  great  many  Indians  there,  but  accord- 
ing to  the  latest  figures  there  are  only  some  200,000  left.  In 
Argentina  the  proportion  is  less. 

This  is  important  from  the  standpoint  of  trade  in  the  future. 
Those  countries  are  gradually  getting  white.  They  are  getting 
white  for  two  reasons.  One  of  them  is  immigration.  Of  course, 
immigration  affects  the  east  coast  more  than  the  west.  But  there 
is  another  cause  affecting  all  of  South  America,  and  that  is  the 
operation  of  anthropological  law.  When  white  men  marry  peo- 
ple of  other  bloods,  particularly  castes,  the  result  is  not  a  mix- 
ture in  the  proportion  of  the  two  bloods,  but  part  of  the 
blood  becomes  pure  white  and  part  pure  native,  while  some  re- 
mains mixed.  This  is  what  the  anthropologists  call  Mendelism, 
and  it  is  true  that  it  is  being  worked  out  in  South  America  today. 
Here  is  another  fact :  the  weaker  element  in  society,  the  colored 
races,  the  red  and  the  black,  do  not  go  ahead  so  fast  as  the  white. 
They  are  gradually  passing  away. 

Now  it  is  going  to  be  a  great  many  years  before  they  are  all 
gone,  especially  in  lands  where  the  Indians  are  in  the  great  ma- 
jority, like  Bolivia,  Peru,  and  Paraguay,  or  where,  as  in  north- 
ern Brazil,  the  greater  part  of  the  population  is  negro.  But  the 
thing  to  bear  in  mind  is  that  inevitably  at  some  time  in  the 
future,  perhaps  in  the  distant  future,  those  lands  are  going  to  be 
white.  That  is  going  to  affect,  perhaps  not  you,  but  surely  this 
country.  I  present  it  to  you  not  merely  as  business  men  dealing 
with  those  lands,  but  as  patriotic  Americans.  If  you  go  in  there 
now  and  get  yourselves  established  your  descendants  will  have 
a  very  much  greater  opportunity  than  you  have  at  the  present 
time,  though  I  believe  you,  too,  will  profit  now. 

The  keynote,  it  seems  to  me,  of  an  understanding  of  South 
America  is  presented,  after  all,  through  history.  You  will  say : 
"Now  the  professor  talks.  He  believes  in  history," — which  I 
suppose  most  of  you  regard  as  a  form  of  polite  literature  of  no 
use  outside  of  the  University  of  California,  But  it  is  true,  and 
those  of  you  who  understand  South  America  or  any  part  of  it 
will  agree  with  me.  You  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  colonial 
period  in  Spanish  America  is  still  going  on.  That  means  that  if 
you  would  understand  South  America  you  must  know  something 
of  the  colonial  period. 

Spanish  Americans  did  not  enjoy  so  many  privileges  in  their 
colonial  era  as  we  did  in  ours.  Socially,  politically,  economically, 
and  intellectually,  they  were  held  down  much  more  than  we. 
We  only  "kicked  up  a  row"  when  England  proposed  to  limit 
the  actual  independence  we  were  enjoying.  It  wasn't  that  way 
in  South  America.  The  result  is  that  South  America  is  still  in 
the  colonial  period.  They  are  in  many  respects  where  we  were 


before  1776,  and  in  many  others  where  we  were  about  1830. 
I  believe  it  would  be  well  for  us  to  read  what  English  travelers 
wrote  about  us  in  1830.  We  would  find  conditions  depicted 
which  were  similar  to  conditions  as  they  are  in  some  of  the  coun- 
tries of  South  America  today. 

I  haven 't  the  time  to  attempt  to  prove  these  assertions  of  mine, 
but  I  might  give  you  one  or  two  illustrations.  A  book  was  pub- 
lished in  1910,  written  by  a  man  named  Percy  Martin.  I  am  not 
referring  to  the  Stanford  Percy.  This  Martin  was  an  English- 
man— I  think  he  is  still  alive.  He  had  lived  in  Mexico  twenty 
years.  He  therefore  thought  he  knew  all  about  it,  and  wrote  a 
book.  In  his  preface  he  said :  ' '  The  very  idea  of  a  revolution  in 
Mexico  is  unthinkable."  The  book  was  hardly  off  the  press 
before  they  were  at  it  dowrn  there,  and  they  have  been  at  it  ever 
since.  Anyone  who  had  the  faintest  conception  of  Spanish 
American  history  would  have  known  better  than  that.  The  case 
in  Mexico,  while  not  exactly  parallel,  was  like  the  same  thing 
which  happened  in  Argentina  under  Rosas,  and  in  Venezuela 
under  Guzman  Blanco.  There  is  one  country  today  where  a 
similar  condition  exists,  and  unless  it  is  checked  by  the  United 
States  it  is  going  to  result  some  day  in  a  revolution. 

Take  another  example.  I  was  traveling  on  a  car  one  day  last 
summer,  and  I  became  acquainted  with  an  American  who  had 
been  a  drummer  of  some  sort  in  South  America.  To  quote  him : 
' '  That  talk  about  our  trade  with  South  America  is  *  the  bunk. '  : 
Those  are  his  words,  not  mine.  "They  are  all  Indians,"  he 
said,  "and  Indians  do  not  buy."  Now  that  is  very  true  of  a 
great  many  parts  of  South  America,  but  let  me  give  you  just  a 
few  simple  statistics  so  that  we  may  see  what  the  real  situation 
is.  In  1810  all  Hispanic  America,  including  Mexico  and  Cuba, 
had  a  population  of  fifteen  million.  In  1905  it  had  a  population 
of  ninety  million — an  increase  of  six  times.  Something  had  hap- 
pened down  there !  Take  the  case  of  one  city,  Buenos  Aires. 
In  the  same  time  its  population  increased  from  45,000  to  500,000 
— an  advance  of  thirty  times. 

But  let  us  take  another  thing  that  I  know  you  arc  more  in- 
terested in.  Let  us  take  invested  capital.  In  1810  there  was 
very  little  foreign  capital  invested  in  Hispanic  America.  Vir- 
tually it  was  negligible.  Take  the  figures  in  1905.  There  an- 
billions  of  dollars  invested  there  now.  There  are  $1,500,000,000 
in  English  capital  invested  in  Argentina  alone.  That  means 
something.  Think  was  it  is  going  to  mean  in  another  hundred 
years — and  the  increase  will  be  greater  in  the  next  hundred 
years  than  in  the  past. 

Take  another  factor.  In  1810  there  was  no  legitimate  foreign 
trade  at  all,  outside  of  the  meagre  trade  with  Spain.  There  was  a 


great  deal  of  smuggling,  but  all  of  it  together  was  small  as 
compared  to  the  volume  today,.  In  1905  the  total  foreign  trade 
of  all  Hispanic  America,  north  and  south,  was  three  billion  dol- 
lars— equal  to  the  combined  foreign  trade  of  the  United  States 
and  Canada! 

There  are  the  figures  for  1905.  Does  it  sound  to  you  as  if  that 
drummer  reported  properly?  He  reported  that  there  was  no 
sense  in  going  in  there;  that  there  was  "nothing  to  it." 

I  am  supposed  to  say  a  little  something  about  contemporary 
problems.  Those  countries  are  all  republics  and  democracies 
in  name.  But  in  fact,  in  varying  degrees  to  be  sure,  they  amount 
to  what  we  would  call  aristocracies.  The  families  prominent  in 
the  colonial  era  are  prominent  today.  They  are  the  power  behind 
the  throne.  In  some  of  the  countries  where  revolutions  still 
occur  they  are  the  result  of  quarrels  between  different  factions 
of  the  aristocracy. 

Now,  with  regard  to  the  masses.  I  am  obliged  to  speak  very  gen- 
erally. The  masses  have  considerable  freedom  in  many  respects 
— freedom  of  expression,  for  example.  We  here  have  no  idea  of 
the  freedom  of  characterization  of  public  individuals  that  there  is 
in  the  newspapers,  for  example,  of  those  countries.  There  used 
to  be  a  president  of  Chile  whose  name  was  Barro  Lugo.  He  was 
called  "Burro  Loco"  by  the  Chileans,  which  means  "Crazy 
Mule."  I  went  to  the  races  one  day  in  Buenos  Aires.  It  is 
quite  the  proper  thing  to  do  down  there ;  no  apologies  at  all  are 
necessary.  The  President  of  the  country  was  to  be  there.  He 
was  twenty  minutes  late.  Did  they  applaud  him?  No,  they 
hissed  him.  They  called  him  "Little  Pig." 

They  have  a  lot  of  freedom  in  that  way,  but  that  does  not  do 
them  a  great  deal  of  good.  The  masses  are  really  subordinate  in 
the  scheme  of  things.  The  educational  systems  are  invariably 
poor,  and  the  masses  are  therefore  kept  in  ignorance  and  become 
tools  of  the  leaders.  They  are  very  emotional  and  easily  stirred 
up.  Sometimes  they  will  join  revolutionary  armies  more  or  less 
against  their  will.  I  recall  a  case  in  a  rather  turbulent  country 
where  a  certain  man  was  trying  to  make  himself  dictator;  so  he 
wanted  to  raise  an  army  of  volunteers.  He  got  his  army  all 
right.  One  of  his  captains  sent  him  in  twenty  soldiers  and  said : 
"Here  are  twenty  volunteers.  When  you  return  the  rope  with 
which  these  are  tied  I'll  get  you  twenty  more." 

One  of  the  other  great  problems,  and  one  we  can  hardly  under- 
stand in  this  country,  is  the  problem  of  the  Church  in  South 
America.  We  can't  understand  it  because  we  have  not  within 
our  lifetime  had  any  problem  of  a  state-established  church.  We 
think  if  a  man  is  a  Catholic  he  is  a  Catholic  in  every  respect,  and 
that  he  is  for  the  Church  in  every  way.  The  massw  >n  South 


America  are  Catholic  if  they  are  anything,  but  they  are  against 
the  Church  as  an  institution.  Their  leaders  have  announced  a 
liberal  program  which  comes  to  about  this:  They  want  tolera- 
tion of  other  faiths — but  as  a  matter  of  law  this  usually  exists  at 
the  present  time,  though  with  a  string  to  it  as  affecting  one's 
chances  of  entry  into  good  society.  They  want  disestablishment 
of  the  church  and  state;  they  want  the  church  to  stand  on  its 
own  feet.  They  are  against  church  marriage  and  church  registry 
of  births  and  deaths,  and  want  civil  marriage  and  civil  registra- 
tion. They  are  fighting  tooth  and  nail  for  divorce !  The  Cath- 
olic Church  frowns  upon  divorce.  A  most  interesting  country  in 
respect  to  this  program  is  Venezuela.  It  is  a  little  bit  turbulent, 
but  they  are  putting  the  liberal  program  into  effect.  The  hist 
thing  to  come  was  the  divorce.  The  minister  who  brought  it 
about,  in  order  to  set  a  good  example,  divorced  his  own  wife ! 

Just  a  word  or  two  with  regard  to  some  of  the  economic  prob- 
lems of  South  America.  South  America  is  extraordinarily  rich. 
(The  gentleman  on  my  left  will  tell  you  more  about  that,  no 
doubt.)  You  may  have  heard  of  the  famous  mines  of  the  Rio 
Tinto  in  Spain — mines  which  were  worked  by  the  Phoenecians 
1000  B.  C.  and  which  have  been  worked  ever  since.  In  recent 
years  they  have  earned  75  per  cent  on  the  stock  of  the  company. 
They  are  copper  mines.  I  can't  prove  it,  but  I  have  it  on  the 
authority  of  various  mining  engineers  that  those  mines  are  a 
bagatelle  compared  with  the  copper  mines  of  Chile.  The  whole 
of  Chile  is  full  of  an  unthinkable  quantity  of  copper. 

This  is  merely  one  illustration  of  the  fact  that  South  America 
is  wonderfully  rich.  To  use  a  hackneyed  expression:  "The  sur- 
face has  not  been  scratched!"  Development  has  not  taken  place 
to  any  great  extent  because  of  the  unsettled  political  conditions, 
but  a  satisfactory  s*tate  is  gradually  being  evolved. 

They  often  have  a  primitive  attitude  toward  business  and 
foreign  capital.  Their  leading  men  recognize  that  they  need 
foreign  capital,  but  the  man  on  the  street  says:  "They  come  and 
take  all  our  wealth  away.  They  are  depriving  us  of  it."  They 
don't  realize  that  though  the  foreigner  takes  some  away  he  is 
building  up  the  country,  just  as  the  English  capitalists  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  are  largely  responsible  for  the  later  pros- 
perity of  the  United  States — without  any  benevolent  intention. 
Sometimes  the  government  itself  is  down  on  foreign  capital,  and 
wants  to  tax  it  out  of  existence. 

There  is  another  problem — the  need  of  a  labor  supply.  The 
Indians  (and  they  exist  in  great  numbers)  are  not  good  laborers. 
White  labor  is  needed.  This  is  the  problem  of  immigration. 

There  are  intellectual  problems.  I  mention  only  the  one,  the 
need  of  a  development  of  an  educational  system,  so  these  people 


can  be  rescued  from  their  ignorance,  so  the  masses  can  get  some 
idea  whither  they  are  going.  Where  they  do  spend  much  money 
on  education  they  spend  it  where  it  is  needed  the  least— on  the 
universities.  The  primary  schools  get  very  little  indeed.  The 
teachers  are  lucky  if  they  get  paid.  I  was  passing  through  one 
of  those  countries,  a  prominent  country,  and  the  teachers  were 
six  months  in  arrears  in  their  pay.  That  is  worse  than  it  is  in 
this  country ! 

The  best  secondary  education,  I  believe,  in  South  America  is 
not  in  the  public  schools  but  in  the  English  schools.  There  is  a 
fact  of  importance  for  you  men  to  consider,  because,  perhaps 
unintentionally,  those  schools  serve  as  a  powerful  weapon  for 
British  propaganda.  The  children  of  the  rich  go  to  Europe  for 
an  education,  preferably  to  Paris.  They  have  a  saying  that  "all 
good  South  Americans  go  to  Paris  when  they  die, ' ' — and  a  good 
many  go  before  they  die. 

Just  a  word  about  some  of  their  foreign  problems.  There  are 
certain  jealousies  among  the  states.  Several  of  them  have  had 
serious  wars.  That  is  something  you  want  to  know  about.  You 
don 't  want  to  talk  to  a  Chilean  about  Peru  in  too  glowing  terms, 
or  vice  versa.  I  pass  by,  also,  some  of  their  relations  with  Euro- 
pean countries.  I  do  want  to  say  something  about  their  atti- 
tude toward  the  United  States.  It  is  one  of  mingled  invitation, 
appreciation,  and  reproach.  They  want  our  capital  and  our 
commerce ;  they  appreciate  some  of  the  things  that  we  have  done ; 
but  they  reproach  us  for  what  they  believe  to  be  our  imperialistic 
policy,  our  intention  to  swallow  them  up.  You  can  get  a  major- 
ity vote  any  time  on  that  proposition,  that  the  United  States  is 
planning  to  go  down  there  and  swallow  them  all  up.  They  are 
terribly  afraid  of  us;  afraid  we  are  going  to  try  it.  Now  they 
regard  the  Monroe  Doctrine  as  a  shield  for  United  States  con- 
quest and  oppression  and  as  a  symbol  of  our  hypocrisy.  There 
is  an  enormous  anti-United  States  literature  in  Spanish  America, 
put  forth,  too,  by  some  of  their  leading  literary  figures.  While 
there  is  some  justification  for  their  arguments,  they  carry  them 
much  too  far.  For  example,  when  we  go  into  Central  America 
and  stop  a  little  revolution  they  denounce  it  as  an  act  of  oppres- 
sion. It  is.  We  are  interfering  with  the  sovereignty  of  a  state. 
But  of  course  we  do  it  without  any  idea  of  conquest. 

A  great  deal  of  this  anti-United  States  propaganda  comes  not 
wholly  from  their  own  study  of  the  situation,  but  partly  as  a 
matter  of  trade  propaganda  on  the  part  of  our  European  rivals. 
Some  of  us,  perhaps,  don't  realize  the  opportunities  in  trade  in 
South  America,  but  the  Europeans  do.  Englishmen  and  French- 
men do ;  Germans  did ;  and  all  of  them  have  made  use  of  this 
fear  of  the  Yankee  to  stir  up  opposition  to  us.  I  attended  a  cer- 


tain  congress  down  there,  and  had  an  opportunity  to  find  out  a 
great  deal  on  this  score.  Their  attitude  is  very  well  illustrated 
by  the  way  in  which  they  regard  our  public  men.  I  don't  believe 
it  will  be  very  difficult  for  you  to  guess  who  was  the  most  hated 
man  in  the  United  States  in  1916. 

FROM  THE  FLOOR:   Roosevelt. 

Yes,  Roosevelt.  They  hated  Roosevelt  because  they  were  afraid 
of  him. 

Now  it  will  perhaps  be  more  difficult  for  you  to  guess  who  was 
the  most  popular  man  at  that  congress. 

FROM  THE  FLOOR:    Bryan. 

Yes,  the  most  popular  man  in  South  America  is  William  Jen- 
nings Bryan, — because  he  is  regarded  as  the  most  harmless 
American  among  us. 

Woodrow  Wilson  was  quite  popular  in  1916.  That  was  the  time 
when  Mexicans  were  shooting  up  Columbus,  and  Woodrow  was 
"watchfully  waiting."  Also,  they  believe  in  the  beautiful  para- 
graphs he  every  now  and  then  ' '  emits. ' '  They  believe  him  to  be 
sincere. 

There  are  a  number  of  things  I  wanted  to  talk  about  in  the 
general  relations  of  Americans  with  Spanish  Americans.  There 
are  a  great  many  faults  that  are  chargeable  to  us, — faults  aris- 
ing out  of  a  certain  national  trait  of  ours  which  I  hope  and  be- 
lieve we  are  passing  through,  but  which,  nevertheless,  we  now 
have, — the  trait  of  provincialism.  We  may  not  believe  we  pos- 
sess it,  but  all  foreigners  do.  We  have  always  lived  to  ourselves, 
and  that  accounts  for  this  trait,  but,  I  repeat,  it  is,  I  believe, 
passing. 

Our  relations  as  individuals  seem  to  show  something  of  the 
provincial.  We  preach  brotherly  love,  and  say,  "We  love  you 
like  long-lost  brothers, ' '  but  we  keep  to  ourselves.  These  Spanish 
American  boys  of  the  very  best  families  sometimes  come  to  our 
universities,  and  we  don't  even  take  them  into  our  fraternities. 
I  was  once  talking  to  a  young  man  from  South  America,  who  was 
worth  several  million  dollars.  He  had  been  through  one  of  our 
universities,  and  I  wanted  to  know  how  he  got  along  and  how  he 
liked  it.  He  said,  "I  got  a  good  education,  but  socially  I  was  a 
pariah."  Now  that  is  true. 

The  wrong  way  of  dealing  with  those  peoples  is  too  frequently 
in  our  diplomatic  service.  We  have  a  lot  of  good,  "deserving 
Democrats,"  and  "deserving  Republicans,"  too,  in  the  diplo- 
matic service.  Most  of  them  are  estimable  men;  many  of  them 
are  fitted  for  the  positions  they  hold ;  but  most  of  them  are  not. 
They  are  often  men  of  high  and  distinguished  attainments  in 
this  country,  but  they  don't  understand  Spanish  Americans, 
and  that  ' '  lets  them  out ' '  on  the  job. 


I  am  going  to  tell  you  the  story  of  one  diplomatic  envoy — I 
won't  tell  you  his  name,  lest  you  think  I  am  making  propaganda. 
I  want  to  show  you  how  distinguished  Americans  can  act  when 
they  get  among  Spanish  Americans. 

"Once  upon  a  time"  an  American  Commission  was  appointed 
to  go  to  South  America  to  return  a  call  which  had  been  made 
by  a  Commission  from  Argentina.  The  American  Commission 
was  headed  by  a  distinguished  man,  one  of  the  moat  successful 
men  in  this  country.  He  was  going  down  there  to  be  polite. 
That  was  his  sole  object.  He  managed,  as  I  might  say,  to  "get 
by"  in  Argentina.  When  he  got  around  to  Chile  and  Peru,  there 
the  fun  began.  He  was  on  an  American  battleship.  When  lie 
got  to  Valparaiso  a  banquet  was  given  by  the  officials  of  the 
Chilean  navy  to  the  American  officers  on  this  ship.  Preceding 
the  banquet  the  boys  had  shore  leave.  This  distinguished  gen- 
tleman said  to  the  young  officers: 

"Now,  remember,  we  want  to  make  a  good  impression.  Don't 
refuse  anything  they  offer  you." 

I  hardly  need  to  say  in  what  manner  that  was  interpreted  by 
these  young  men.  They  didn  't  refuse  very  much,  and  when  they 
got  to  the  banquet  they  were  ripe  for  the  feast.  Here  is  what 
happened.  Among  us  it  might  sound  funny,  but  it  didn't  seem 
funny  to  the  Chileans,  who  are  a  very  dignified  people. 
One  midshipman  picked  up  a  bun  and  threw  it  at  another 
midshipman.  At  length  one  young  American  conceived  a  very 
brilliant  idea.  Why  throw  buns  at  another  midshipman?  He 
grabbed  a  biscuit,  and  aimed  at  the  Chilean  admiral — and  he 
hit  him ! 

They  got  through  that  banquet  some  way.  The  next  thing 
on  the  program  was  a  grand  ball.  The  Chilean  aristocracy 
carne  down  from  Santiago  in  order  to  dance  with  these  fine 
young  men.  The  first  American  officer  through  the  door  threw 
his  arms  around  a  Chilean  girl  and  kissed  her.  That  ended  the 
ball  right  there.  We  might  excuse  that  in  San  Francisco,  but 
it  wasn't  funny  to  the  Chileans. 

But  you  say:  Why  blame  the  distinguished  American?  All 
right  !  But  let  us  follow  him  further.  A  little  while  afterward 
he  was  banqueted.  He  acted  all  right  in  the  preliminaries,  but 
eventually  he  made  a  speech,  and  that  is  where  he  fell.  He 
made  this  speech  before  some  distinguished  Chilean  bankers 
and  business  men.  He  said  in  effect.  "Gentlemen:  The  United 
States  is  a  very  rich  and  powerful  country."  That  is  true,  but 
if  any  of  you  have  been  in  South  America  you  will  appreciate 
the  impression  that  statement  made.  They  don't  enjoy  hearing 
that  dinned  into  their  ears.  He  went  on,  "We  know  that  you 


are  poor !    We  want  to  help  yon  !    Come  to  us,  and  we  will  give 
yon  anything!" 

What  could  have  been  more  generous  than  that?  But  you 
can  easily  see  the  effect  it  would  have.  Suppose  someone  came 
to  us  and  said :  ''You  poor  blatherskites ;  we  would  like  to  make 
you  better  than  you  are !"  We  wouldn't  care  very  much  about 
that.  Their  press  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other 
shouted  out  against  this  man  whom  they  proclaimed  to  be  "no 
gentleman." 

That  is  nothing  to  what  happened  in  Peru!  Going  to  Peru 
this  distinguished  American  sent  a  wireless  to  the  President  of 
Peru  and  said :  "I  am  coming  to  visit  you  in  Lima."  That  was 
enough  for  the  President  of  Peru.  Immediately  plans  were 
made  for  receptions.  They  decorated  the  city,  and  put  in  all 
the  money  they  could  afford  and  a  little  more.  Committees 
were  organized,  and  finally  the  boat  arrived  at  Callao,  the  port 
of  Lima,  which  is  only  five  miles  away. 

When  the  boat  got  there  this  distinguished  American  heard 
that  Callao  had  been  put  in  quarantine  by  the  United  States 
Government.  That  meant  the  vessel  would  be  held  up  two  days 
in  Panama.  This  American  had  a  wife,  and  she  was  in  the 
United  States,  and  he  was  eager  to  get  back  and  see  her.  He 
didn't  want  to  stop  two  days  in  Panama;  so  he  sent  a  message 
to  Lima:  "I  have  decided  to  go  on !  I  hear  there  is  bubonic 
plague  here;  so  I  cannot  stay!" 

Our  American  Minister  there  certainly  did  one  thing  worth 
while.  He  rushed  to  Callao  and  he  said:  "You  come  ashore  or 
I  go  back,  right  here  and  now."  So  the  "great  man"  agreed 
to  come  ashore,  but  said  that  nobody  else  could  come  and  that 
he  himself  would  so  and  see  the  President.  Tie  went  to  Lima 
and  saw  the  President,  successfully  dodged  the  committees,  and 
in  two  hours  was  back  on  his  ship.  I  doubt  if  I  can  make  you 
understand  how  mortally  offended  the  Peruvians  were.  They 
have  not  gotten  over  it  yet. 

That  is  typical  of  the  way  Americans  act  when  they  do  not 
understand  the  ways  of  the  Spanish-Americans.  I  had  intended 
to  illustrate  that  in  other  ways,  particularly  in  our  business  re- 
lations. I  have  a  good  many  stories  I  might  tell,  but  since  the 
time  is  going  on  and  since  we  have  a  speaker  tonight  who  is 
going  to  deal  with  trade,  I  will  let  that  portion  of  my  talk 
£0  by. 

I  want  to  say,  however,  that  we  are  not  all  as  bad  as  that. 
Fortunately,  some  of  us  know  better.  Fortunately,  some  Amer- 
ican business  firms  have  gone  into  South  America  and  have  gone 
in  in  the  proper  way.  We  are  learning;  we  are  mining  out  of 


what  I  call  our  provincialism.  In  the  course  of  time  such  things 
as  happened  on  that  trip  will  not  be  able  to  occur  because  Amer- 
icans will  not  be  able  to  do  such  things.  Americans  will  un- 
derstand better  how  to  have  contacts  with  foreign  peoples.  But 
we  have  a  lot  to  do  in  the  meantime  in  order  to  acquire  a  proper 
information  with  regard  to  South  America.  I  had  prepared  a 
list  of  what  I  call  my  "fourteen  points"  of  things  we  should 
do  to  develop  our  information  with  regard  to  South  America, 
but  I  shall  spare  you  their  recital.  It  comes  to  this,  though. 
We  must  study  South  America.  We  must  increase  our  sources 
of  information,  and  we  must  get  men  who  can  procure  that 
information. 

I  am  tempted  to  tell  you  a  little  story.  The  most  capable 
salesman  I  found  in  South  America  was — will  you  believe  me? 
— a  former  professor  of  one  of  our  American  universities !  The 
man  didn't  know  much  about  the  business  he  was  operating  at 
the  start.  I  think  he  must  have  acquired  it  later.  But  he  knew 
the  Spanish  language  and,  more  than  that,  he  knew  Spanish 
people.  He  knew  what  they  considered  a  gentleman  to  be.  He 
conformed  to  their  methods  to  such  an  extent  that  the  poor  man 
will  never  again  be  a  professor !  He  is  making  too  much  money. 

One  of  my  "fourteen  points"  I  shall  mention.  I  believe  we 
should  encourage  all  periodicals,  for  example,  which  tend  to  in- 
crease our  information,  and  I  have  brought  one  here  with  me 
tonight,  the  Hispanic-American  Historical  Review,  which  owed 
its  foundation,  two  years  ago,  to  a  San  Francisco  gentleman, 
Mr.  Cebrian.  You  wrill  say:  "This  is  nothing  but  something 
these  historians  have.  It  is  full  of  junk,  no  doubt."  Let  me 
show  you  an  example  of  the  "junk"  contained.  Here  is  a  list 
of  all  the  newspapers  of  Argentina  outside  of  Buenos  Aires. 

Here  is  a  list  of  the  recent  economic  reports  of  different  peri- 
odicals. There  are,  I  suppose,  a  couple  of  hundred  of  them. 
Those  are  practical  things,  even  in  a  poor  historian's  magazine. 
Here  is  another,  and  this  is  the  most  valuable  thing.  In  each 
number  is  published  a  list  of  all  the  books  and  all  the  articles, 
historical  and  otherwise,  that  have  been  brought  out  in  the 
Ilir«'f  months  preceding  concerning  Hispanic  America. 

Xow  I  see  that  I  have  talked  a  little  longer  than  I  believe  you 
intended  I  should  epeak,  but,  though  there  are  many  things  I 
had  thought  of  saying,  I  don't  want  my  companion  in  misery 
here  to  get  up  and  make  some  such  speech  as  the  British  Jurist, 
Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  once  did.  He  attended  a  meeting  of  a 
scientific  club,  and  he  was  down  for  a  talk.  The  preceding 
speakers  talked — well,  longer  than  I  have,  each  one  of  them. 
Finally  it  got  to  his  turn  at  half  past  twelve.  His  subject  was 


"Applied  Science."  He  got  up  and  said:  "The  only  thing  I 
can  think  of  to  say  at  this  time  of  night  has  to  do  with  the  ap- 
plication of  the  domestic  safety  match  to  the  bedroom  candle." 
There  is  a  sequel  to  that.  It  so  happened  that  one  of  our 
literary  men,  James  Russell  Lowell,  was  there.  He  imme- 
diately drew  out  a  little  piece  of  scratch  paper  from  his  pocket, 
and  wrote  this  verse  for  Baron  Pollock  : 

'  *  Oh,  wise  Sir  Frederick  !    Might  the  others  catch 
Your  happy  science — and  supply  your  match!" 


Louis  Roesch  Co.,  Lith.  and  Print.,  S.  F. 


